


The Boy Who Cried Werewolf

by princehwahwa



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Acquaintances to Lovers, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - High School, First Dates, Fist Fights, Fluff and Angst, Human/Monster Romance, Jongho the Witch, M/M, Mingi the Fantasy Nerd, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Popular Boy Yeosang, School Dances, Slow Burn, Werewolves, Yeosang the Popular Boy Who Doesn't Want to Be Popular, catch my yunsanwoo ship if you will, these two are DENSE, werewolf Mingi, yes i know the title is from nickelodeon you try coming up with a punny title
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-19 09:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22242553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princehwahwa/pseuds/princehwahwa
Summary: After the Halloween masquerade ball, Kang Yeosang, the ball king, was so damn curious. Who was under the werewolf mask and where was the school’s nerd, Song Mingi, that night? He was on the attendee list when you first walk in but he didn’t come up when the king nominees were listed, Mingi being the third with a chance to win the crown. As Yeosang began to depart from the gym, there was a boy in a werewolf costume, details down to the smallest. He gave Yeosang a timid grin before pouncing away. Who the hell was the wolf boy?
Relationships: Kang Yeosang/Song Mingi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	1. "bad dog"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pupteez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pupteez/gifts).



> hello !! this is a gift to @pupteez on twitter for my personal story giveaway !! i’ll probably host one for every milestone so if you’re interested in one, follow me on twitter @JONGHWAISM and be on the lookout for another giveaway !! thank you ash for giving me your idea and i hope you enjoy it !!

Yeosang had flopped on top of his mattress, the crown that was fixed on his head flying off and landing sideways on his pillow. It was heavy and made his head hurt anyway, not like he truly cared if he had dented it or gotten one of the hot glued gems off. His brown locks that were swept away from his forehead began their migration back down to graze over his perfectly sculpted eyebrows, his hair losing the volume that he originally had when he had accepted his role as the Halloween masquerade ball king for his high school. It wasn’t a bad thing, he was already expecting it as everyone was vouching for him to win and he fought with a hard campaign of printed posters and free snacks, but the victory didn’t seem as sweet anymore. Through all of the hard work and effort, only three of the four nominees made it up on stage, the one he was really trying to meet up with was Song Mingi.

Did _the_ high school heartthrob, Kang Yeosang, have a crush on the mysterious and elusive teacher’s pet that was Song Mingi, the boy drowning in his books to perk his head up for a simple conversation? Yeosang wasn’t entirely sure himself, always peeking at the lunch table that harbored the boy of solitude and his three closest, Kim Hongjoong, Park Seonghwa, and Choi Jongho, each as studious and self-involved as Mingi was. Sometimes Mingi would look up from his fantasy book that delved deep into the lore of dragons to meet with Yeosang’s gaze, the older of the two throwing a lax wink back at the other, watching the other grow flustered, flamingo pink blush gracing his cheekbones as he hides behind his pages once again, picking his glasses closer to his face. 

Mingi wasn’t handsome or good-looking, peaking along the attractiveness scale as slightly above average. As Yeosang’s best friend of five years, Jung Wooyoung, put it, Mingi was, “A self-portrait created by a learning artist.” When Yeosang asked what it meant, Wooyoung shooed him away and started conversing with Choi San and Jeong Yunho about their dates to the Halloween ball. Yeosang decided to go alone while Wooyoung and Yunho fought over who would give San the best ball-posal or whatever the kids were calling it these days. In the end, San decided that both of his boyfriends’ antics were cute enough and took both of them - as he planned, duh - but that’s beside the point. Yeosang was now third-wheeling - or fourth-wheeling if you’re into body count - on the whole YunWooSan date, being that he had denied all fourteen girls and three boys that attempted to accompany him because he wanted the Dungeons and Dragons master to ask him.

That did not happen, for obvious reasons.

One, Yeosang was the poster child of a decent citizen. Sure, his grades were average but he was still a rule-follower. He didn’t step out of line or prove himself to be superior with his social status, not like that would matter in ten years anyway. He kept himself clean-cut, his appearance spotless as well as his reputation as the boy next door. Two, Mingi had almost-crippling social anxiety. When Mingi was voluntold to read in his senior English class once, he spoke in a deep but quiet tone, Yeosang noticing that he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. Mingi spoke in rushed sentences, usually the tail end of his words coming out more of an incoherent mumble than any proper language. He kept three friends only and even then, his circle were the ringleaders of their conversations, Mingi only contributing his thoughts if he deemed it absolutely necessary. The majority of the high school had never even heard Mingi speak at all, a feat that many high school students couldn’t lay their pride on. Three, Mingi was a nerd… A fantasy-enthused, stereotypical geek that could probably make salutatorian with the work that he put in, despite his participation points being little to none. He was a model student academically and only delved deep into his fantasy worlds when he deemed it appropriate and his grades were properly in line. Other than that, Yeosang knew nothing else about the boy.

Yeosang pulled his phone out of the seat pocket of his dress slacks, sliding the sleek cell phone in the palm of his hand as he unlocks it, tapping on Wooyoung’s Instagram story. Yeosang left early because he felt emotionally exhausted, praying that Mingi would maybe show up and they could start something. Unfortunately, not all dreams come true, and this was no exception. The sound blaring from his phone’s speaker pierced Yeosang’s eardrums, his thumb clicking his volume until it was at least resting at two bars. Wooyoung had a wide grin, his plastic vampire teeth resting at his bottom lip as he was sandwiched between his two boyfriends. They had decided to be a matching vampire group but Yeosang had popped out the plastic nuisances well into the night and tossed them in the trash. He was giving a panorama shot as his boyfriends shimmied to take in the sight of the blacklight party that the school had proposed, the multitude of students in costumes attempting to jump into frame to get onto _the_ Jung Wooyoung’s story. Sure, Yeosang was pretty popular amongst the masses and all but Wooyoung was the one every girl would gawk over. Yeosang only won Halloween Masquerade Ball King because Wooyoung decided that he didn’t want to become a part of court and leave his boyfriends to glory in his win. It was a strange “sacrifice” but it helped Yeosang’s case to become a part of the court.

“Halloween Ball, bitches! My boy, Yeosang, is the king of this shit school so all of you can eat out of his ass like a bowl of Fruit Loops!” Wooyoung’s cackle sounds borderline of a melting Tickle Me Elmo and an actual witch. Suited the Halloween aesthetic around him, of course. Yeosang didn’t want to admit it, but he’d always despised his best friend’s laugh. It was harsh on the ears, reminiscent of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum but with a big smile on his face. The explicitness of Woo’s statement made Yeosang’s stomach turn, being that he wasn’t the hugest fan on such vulgar sentencing. “Where’s Yeosang-hyung?” Wooyoung pans the camera around looking for the matching vampire of their group but comes to no avail as he was now at home, clicking through his friend’s story. He eventually can’t stand Wooyoung’s chaotic shrieking and slides over to San’s.

His is more tame, being that he’s not bouncing with the bubbly energy that Wooyoung was practically reeking of, his consisting of boomerangs of different events throughout the night. After a while, he found it.

“We’re announcing the Halloween Ball King nominees now!” The student council president had spoken calmly into a microphone, the DJ soon dimming his music until it was barely pulsing against the smokestack speakers. “Kang Yeosang!” A rush of applause fills the gymnasium, San filming his friend stride up the stairs with a small smile, waving at the cheering crowd that was rooting for the boy next door. As the roar begins to die down, the president clears his throat, reading the other name off of the card. He calls out two names that Yeosang wasn’t sure he’d heard of, shaking hands with the two as they made their strides up the stage. “Song Mingi?” He reads the fourth name in an obvious confusion - which stung Yeosang’s heart a bit - but nonetheless got a few stray claps in. The minutes were passing by, the student body looking amongst themselves to properly locate the fourth nominee. Mingi was a no-show. Yeosang didn’t have it in him to finish the story, simply locking his phone and tossing it on his nightstand, a soft sigh crawling out from his throat.

“He was on the check-in list, I swear,” Yeosang said to his ceiling, not caring right now if he would be able to hold a proper conversation with it or not. “I read that thing four times and it said ‘Song Mingi’ so where was he?”

There was another question in the back of Yeosang’s mind. The ball ended at eleven but Yeosang left around ten after the Ball King was announced but he’d come across a student with a remarkable werewolf costume. They were hiding in the bushes in front of the gym, Yeosang feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up when he heard them grunt a heavy breath. Remarkable method acting, he concurred. He turned around, seeing the student finally stand up, his height towering over his 5’8” frame, Yeosang now feeling more dwarf-like then when he would sidle up to Yunho in a crowded room. He assumed that the student was a boy, being that there was no… Ahem, volume in the chest. He was more than several inches taller than Yeosang, the smaller boy counting up the student’s height to at least six-and-a-half feet. His breath was hot and heavy, despite being several feet apart, Yeosang could feel it crawl over every square inch of his skin. It wasn’t as bad as he thought actually, he felt warmer even though it was comfortably chilly outside.

The fur on the guy’s werewolf suit was beyond compare, matted in some places with a dark grey coat spread across all parts of his skin. Yeosang was certain that it would most likely be rugged under his fingers, the immense attention to detail just blowing Yeosang’s expectations out of the water. All he did was run into the major brand Halloween store and pick up a cape and some faux canines that he wasn’t even wearing anymore. The black-tipped claws, yellowed teeth with hot breath that slightly stung at Yeosang’s nostrils but he wasn’t going to be rude about it. But those beady, black eyes, there was something in Yeosang’s brain that blared “Maybe you should run.” They were so real and terrifying in a sense but Yeosang’s heart only sent comfort into his bloodstream, standing rooted in the concrete sidewalk.

“I like your costume,” Yeosang grins, his hands buried in his pockets to fight back the slight chill outside the gym. It was a genuine compliment, it made Yeosang a little upset that he didn’t necessarily put in much of an effort to be the most realistic vampire in the world but this guy in front of him gave his everything and all to resemble the real thing.

The wolf boy smiles timidly, baring his amazingly sharp and yellowed teeth, black lips curled back to fit the size of his smile. Yeosang had to admit, it was kind of cute. There’s a small snap of a twig in the distance, something Yeosang wouldn’t have been able to hear if it wasn’t so deathly quiet outside, the wolf boy’s ears perking up, his snout pointed in the direction of the sound. He hops out from his position in the bushes, practically making bounds into the forest behind the school. Yeosang’s eyebrow perks at the wolf boy’s sudden departure, watching him disappear into the trees where he probably wouldn’t see him again.

“Who was that?” Yeosang sighs, his mind fuzzily returning to reality. Soon, his bedroom light began to give him a migraine, the boy untying the knot on his cape, discarding it on the floor without a care and flicking off his bedroom light. He was mentally exhausted from waiting up for the boy that could never mutter a single word to him. Why did his heart feel shattered? Why did it feel like Yeosang was suffocating?

Yeosang slept in dress clothes, shooting off the final “Goodnight” text to the YunWooSan group chat that he was a part of, only being left on read. If he were honest - which he was known to be to brutal extents - it didn’t really bother him. They were having fun at the ball so why stop everything just to wish their friend goodnight? Wooyoung began typing but was soon pulled away by San who began to grind on him and then got in trouble for said grinding, not like Yeosang knew that though.

He folded his hands behind his head, resting his head in the net of his interlaced fingers. He was thinking about Mingi again, something he seemed to do a lot more often now. He had found him on social media but unlike everyone else on campus, Mingi kept all of his accounts private. Yeosang had sent him a request to follow but Mingi never answered it. He expected it, he was the shyest kid at school, but it still seemed to twist at his chest a little. It was the weirdest thing. Why would he like the school’s resident nerd? On what planet or extraterrestrial plane was that deemed okay? It’s not even the fact that they’re both boys, it’s that they’re opposites attract in the worst way possible.

“Mingi-ah,” Yeosang sighs up to his ceiling, his mind already painting the mental image of the red-haired student who always blushed until his skin was as flaming as his hair suggested. His glasses would always slip down the bridge of his nose, a slender finger having to push them back up again before they fell off entirely. Yeosang noticed his side profile one day, the left arm of his round glasses slightly crooked from the years of torment that Mingi’s personal bullies would dish out. Wooyoung used to be one of them before he decided he had better things to do, such as please his own boyfriends. Mingi’s eyes were a little smaller than most and his smile, though hesitant and timid, always managed to put Yeosang in a better mood. His lips practically disappeared in his grin, only flashing off a beautiful, pearly white smile. It made Yeosang feel warm and comforted.

Soon, Yeosang’s eyes began to flutter shut, now drifting off to his thoughts of Mingi, most of them soft and kind-hearted but the one that became his lullaby to sleep was anything but. Yeosang wouldn’t remember in the morning, he never did… At least that’s what he always told himself.

***

The sun breaks through the blinds of Jongho’s bedroom window, jolting Mingi up in a fit of whines. He groans at nature’s intrusion that was disturbing his slumber, easing himself into a half-awake state. Then, he remembered everything. Mingi practically screams, flipping himself so that his face was buried in his friend’s pillow, wrapping the remains of it around his head.

“Good morning, puppy boy!” Jongho exclaims cheerfully, towel drying his hair with a white towel, only wearing a dark wash of skinny jeans, a leather belt cinched around his waist, toned upper half on full display. “I found you outside the school’s forest. You wanna tell me what happened?”

Mingi groans again, his acute hearing picking up Jongho’s footsteps approaching the side of his bed. Was he truly that idiotic to let that happen? He kicks his legs up, tangling the thin sheet around his calves, another noise of embarrassment slipping past him as he turns to lay on his back, hands covering his cherry red face from Jongho’s view. “He saw me.”

Jongho’s smile drops as fast as it had picked up, taking Mingi by the wrist which was fairly simple, being that Mingi’s strength wasn’t as highlighted as it was when he was still attempting to wake up, not to mention Jongho’s human strength in general. Jongho wasn’t the supernatural beast that Mingi was but his power was still relatively off the charts, being one of the team captains of weight-lifting at his school. “Who saw you?”

“Kang Yeosang,” Mingi huffs, using his other hand to push himself in a seated position against Jongho’s bed, his voice sounding like he was on the brink of tears. “You know what he said to me? He said, ‘I like your costume’ with a smile and my stupid ass smiled back. My skin-tearing self made sure my murder weapons were on full display and I smiled back. Please stab me with one of your silver forks, I beg of you, Choi Jongho.”

“Enough with your suicidal speech.” Jongho sits on the edge of the bed, rubbing Mingi’s back in wide circles attempting to relieve him of his embarrassment which was clearly obvious that he would have to try harder than that. He knew of Mingi’s raging crush on one of the hottest and most popular guys on campus, being that Jongho used to be romantically interested in Mingi’s main bully before he found out about his ways and also picked up his own new victims that were now called his boyfriends, San and Yunho. Jongho fell out of his feelings as quickly as he fell into them.

Mingi, on the other hand, was stubborn. Maybe it was because of the predator blood that ran through his veins but he’d fallen for Yeosang long before he knew that he was one of Wooyoung’s friends. Mingi liked to think that he and Woo were on better terms but in reality, Woo just grew bored of Mingi. He could’ve always fought back, he was a damn werewolf after all but exposing himself like that in front of the whole school when he’d already grown a reputation for being the most timid student on campus, he just kept his mouth shut and let Wooyoung take it out on him. But Yeosang… Yeosang was different.

Yeosang had compassion coupled with honesty. In one of the discussions about their biggest regrets in English class, Yeosang said, “There are idealisms that I’m popular because of who I keep around me. My best friend of five years is Wooyoung. He marches me around like I’m a mannequin and I’ve lived like that for as long as I can remember with him. So what do I regret? The paragon of my social role as the heartthrob of society and that I let somebody decide it for me.” Nobody expected that from him and neither did Mingi. He always thought that Yeosang was comfortable being at the top of the high school social food chain, watching Mingi the Nerd wither at the bottom and be devoured by the kings at the top. Hell, Yeosang won Halloween Ball King.

“Jongho-ah, he _saw_ me. One of the most popular boys in school saw my true form.” He lets out a muted scream, flopping back down on the pillow, repeatedly bashing his hand against his forehead. Jongho takes Mingi’s wrist once again, having to use a little more now that Mingi’s supernatural powers began to unearth themselves from their dormant state.

“It’s not like he could know it was you though,” Jongho sighs, using his free hand to scratch the back of his head. “You were in full wolf form, not like when you get angry and let your fur coat your knuckles and face like you did when you were younger. Even then, there’s no solid evidence that Yeosang could have to pin you as a creature of the night.” Jongho, despite being a junior to Mingi’s senior, always spoke in a highly educated manner, one that sometimes confused Mingi.

“I like your costume,” Mingi huffed, throwing his head back down on the pillow. “What time is it?”

“The hour is seven and we will be late if you don’t quit it with your stupid tirade about Mr. Princey Popular Boy.” Jongho takes a firm grip of Mingi’s calves, pulling him towards his body and onto the floor. Mingi lets out a low growl, a deep gold color setting into the older’s irises. “Watch your emotions, Mingi. You know my grandmother won’t take wolves in her humble abode.”

Right, Jongho’s grandmother was a witch who helped aid traveling supernaturals. That’s how Jongho figured out his best friend was a werewolf. Seonghwa, Mingi, and Hongjoong had come over while Jongho’s grandma was running errands on the other side of town. Hongjoong, being the curious little teenager he is, cracked open an ancient-looking book off the shelf and had read the lines of the page he opened terribly. All humans can conduct with magic but it takes people of the right lineage to do it correctly. Unfortunately, Hongjoong was not. Soon, a soft glowing blue orb grew from the book, the high school senior growing nervous and dropping the book, sending the pages up in a flurry, the orb shooting off into the room where Mingi and Seonghwa were in, the blue thing striking Mingi in the chest which sent him in a howling frenzy, small tufts of coarse fur growing across his skin in splotchy patterns. When Jongho found his best friend had wolfed out because of the idiot Hongjoong, he had to expose his own powers as well to fix him. Keep in mind that Jongho is a human, as all witches are, he just holds a power of magic more finite than regular humans. Hongjoong was forbidden to touch any of the house’s bookshelves.

“Can you just help me fake sick? I know that you’ve done that for yourself during a big test.” Mingi was mentally on his knees with his pleading, still stuck on his back on Jongho’s carpeted bedroom floor. “Magic me up some ‘incurable disease’ and maybe I won’t bite your head off like a chew toy.”

Jongho laughs sarcastically, pulling Mingi off of his back and into a seating position by his arms. Mingi was tempted to flop back down in his, quote-unquote, “misery” but was halted by Jongho moving his futon to the foot of his bed without even touching it. “If I ‘magic you up’ something as fatal as a disease, do you really think I wouldn’t have done it by now?”

“I can tear apart your chest with my claws,” the older hisses through his teeth, a small pout pulling his bottom lip downward.

“Uh-huh, and you can barely make it through a single section of Algebra II without wanting to chase that stupid squirrel like a golden retriever. Not to mention I am the grandson of an Earth Priestess who could literally use all elements of anything around me to physically take you down and make you stay down. Let sleeping dogs lie, hyung,” Jongho chuckles darkly.

“Jesus, how many pets have you put down with your witchcraft?” Mingi huffs, finally standing erect on his feet, shaking out his hair with a soft grin. Okay, yeah, maybe Jongho was right about the common house dog comment but Mingi sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it. “Do you have clothes for me to borrow, I only have this.”

  
  
“You’re two sizes larger than me so I had to do some digging in my drawers.”

“If it’s your nice clothes, I swear to—

It was Jongho’s nice clothes.

***

Yeosang was five minutes later than usual to his first class, senior English. He scanned the seats, seeing that Mingi was a no-show, just like he was last night. He sighs softly as he ducks his head to avoid leering eye contact. As he gets to his desk, Yunho leans over, poking him in his bicep. Yunho was forced to transfer into this class because his original English teacher had had enough of the idiotic tendencies of YunWooSan and their tented pants. The three were separated, despite the mass amount of begging and complaining on everyone’s part to keep the three together. His fading blonde hair was slightly damp, most likely from his attempts at haphazardly blow drying after his shower but there were strange marks stretched from his jawline down to his collarbone. Some of them were concealed with beige bandages but it didn’t do much to blanket the damage the two boys called WooSan had done to him. Yeosang was curious about how one could bruise skin simply using their mouth.

“You’re never late, what happened?” Yunho asks, a small glitter in his eye. Yunho is somewhat of a gossip king; if you wanted dirt on your best friend or even your worst enemy, Yunho was the one to call. It was probably because of his angel-like exterior, often giving his victims the illusion that he won’t potentially make or break the remains of any social status they continue to cling onto. He was the one who determined if you could survive the initial damage of the power of his attacks. This could’ve been Yunho actually being a good friend - Yeosang prayed that that was what this was - or he was trying to dig deep into Yeosang’s poker face and maybe out him to the whole school if he felt like it.

“I slept past my alarm,” he grumbled under his breath, trying his very best not to make direct eye contact with the paint easel of deep blue and purple shades that painted his honey skin. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, Yeosang had indeed snored past the default ringer on his phone but it was only because he was trapped in a dream. It wasn’t sleep paralysis, it wasn’t as if he was half-awake and stuck in his bed with no feeling in his body, it was just his mind running the course of its own form of storytelling.

It was a strange tale. It was about the wolf boy from last night, except his costume was reality. Yeosang felt small when his size had lingered over him, but he wasn’t afraid of him. Yeosang reached a slightly trembling hand out to stroke the boy’s fur. It felt greasy from the sweat that was pouring off of him, Yeosang’s hand now stained red from the blood that caked up his coat. All Yeosang could do was simply smile his trademark grin, the small glimmer in his eyes becoming familiar to the creature that Yeosang was caressing. “Hi, Mingi.” Soon, the angry soundtrack of his parents warned him that he would be late for school jolted him awake, the boy tripping over air to get ready to leave the house. As he pulled into the parking lot in his luxury car, he couldn’t stop thinking about his dream. Why did he call that thing Mingi?

Yunho nods slowly, his head perched in his hand as if he was waiting for the rest of the juicy details of Yeosang’s tardiness. Like hell, he would tell Yunho the school’s People magazine that he dreamed about his crush as some murderous monster. Yeosang didn’t care about some stupid reputation but he wasn’t sure about how Mingi would reciprocate those same feelings.

“Kang Yeosang, do you seriously have the audacity to stroll into your first period and strike up a conversation with Jeong Yunho like that, sir?” The teacher had an intense furrow in her overdone eyebrows, her red-lipsticked lips curled downwards in a fierce frown. She’d never been upset with Yeosang but it didn’t help that he had waltzed in here five minutes after the bell, his friend forcing him into a conversation he truly didn’t want to have in the first place. “I’ll see you in detention, Yeosang.”

Great, now Yeosang had detention. His record wasn’t snow-pure but it still stung a bit knowing that he would have to sit in a hard desk for an extra hour with the notorious bad kids with their stolen cigarettes and leather-jacketed ice eyes. He wasn’t afraid of them, per se, he just didn’t want to be at school longer than he could’ve been. But soon, that’s when heaven had simply answered his prayers… Or at least something along those lines.

“Song Mingi got in a fight!” A student ran into the English class, the entire classroom now on their feet trying to figure out what was going on outside. Yeosang was the first one to slip through the crowd and outside into the hallway. Sure enough, there was Song Mingi in all of his black hoodie—That’s not a black hoodie. Mingi was stretched in a majority of black, sure, but he was wearing a burgundy short-sleeve button-up, his glasses slightly crooked on his face and a small bruise coloring his left cheekbone. He was tucked into some black dress slacks, an expensive-looking leather belt cinched around his waist. Yeosang would’ve been lying if he said that his fit wasn’t directly affecting him emotionally and mentally, maybe a little physically too. What else did you expect? He is still just a teenage boy after all.

The halls were now packed to the brim with kids standing out of their classrooms’ doorways trying to get a good look at the damage that the little school nerd had been dished out. On the contrary, it seemed the agitators of the situation had been dealt out a series of multiple injuries. There were three people involved so it was an unfair fight, not like that really mattered anyway, Mingi was the school’s favorite target for pestering. Mingi’s best friend, Jongho, was being held back by the other two, only one of them throwing their punches against the school’s geek. Mingi, despite the small mark on his face, looked practically unharmed. Jongho seemed to suffer a few bruises across his face and abdomen but the two looked like models compared to the punching bags of the other three.

“I think he broke my ribs,” one of the boys chirp, a sharp yelp like that of a shot animal erupts through his throat, the rest of the student body pulled out their phones to film the carnage of the altercation. It looked like something out of a war movie, blood and spit mixed in puddles on the floor, the sight making Yeosang’s stomach turn. “He’s a fucking dog!”

“He growled and barked at us!” Another one chimes in, holding his stomach in his arms as he groans another screech of pain. “His claws… He has sharp teeth and claws…”

“I think he has a concussion,” Jongho interjects, a minute smile spread across his lips from the absurd claims that his best friend had abnormal extremities. Mingi was standing next to him, his hands adjusting the arms of his glasses so that they were perched properly on the bridge of his nose. Maybe Yeosang had dreamed up that bruise on Mingi’s cheekbone because his face was now clear of any impurities or markings. They both grin slightly as if enjoying a private joke, then reverting back to their emotionless states as they hear the principal make his way down the hall.

“Don’t give me that concussion bullshit, you witch! You broke my friend’s arm without even touching him!” He screeches, Jongho’s expression not even making a budge. He only crosses his arms, gently nudging Mingi with his shoulder, only prodding at his biceps. Mingi’s eyes scan the halls to see the spectators revel in his victory when his eyes locked with Yeosang’s. Oh… Oh no.

Soon Mingi felt sick to his stomach, the fact that his crush just saw his slightly violent nature made the other feel nauseous. As he was about to depart to the nearest bathroom to spill out his guts, the principal had stopped him in his tracks, ready to deal out punishments like playing cards at a poker table. Mingi had always kept his anger in check, the only reason this situation was so different from the rest was because it was Jongho being picked on, not Mingi. He probably would’ve kept his claws to himself if it was just him, maybe Jongho casting a small spell to protect him from the flurry of punches that would heal over anyway, but this wasn’t about him. Would Jongho chew him out later about it? Yes, but he contributed his bone-shattering spell on one of the boys who was holding him back from protecting Mingi so he would get equally lectured by his grandmother.

“Our cameras glitched out as soon as the fight broke out,” the principal said, making hasty strides to make himself known to the sea of teenagers, more specifically Mingi and Jongho. “Because there is no solid evidence of who started what other than some bruises and broken arms, the only punishment that we can serve all five of you is separated detention for today until things get cleared up.”

Mingi nods meekly, Jongho holding back a loaded fist to the principal himself. The two that were standing with him bit back their tongues to save themselves from a longer sentence. Mingi was on the verge of tears now that Yeosang had seen the carnage that he could cause in a half-form. He’d only stretched out his teeth and claws to intimidate them a little but things went a little too far. No, actually, a little isn’t the right word, Mingi had clearly lost his head in a little word fight that soon started throwing fists.

“Everyone can return to class… Now!” The principal had called. That’s when Mingi’s stomach had slightly turned.

A series of disgusting burps had come out of the senior, Jongho raising a concerned eyebrow at his older before his eyes had widened as the older had just emptied his guts on the hallway floor. Mingi just threw up in front of the whole school. Yeosang couldn’t bear to watch anymore. Mingi actually wanted to let the cars have a way with his body right about now. Jongho was only shaking his head as his face burned as red as a tomato. 

“Ugh, the geek just threw up!” “He just yakked up in the hallway like a dog!” “I’m gonna be sick!” Mingi was physically shaking now, his entire body on the brink of total collapse. With the tears burning in his faltering brown and gold eyes, he pushes past the crowd that was slowly advancing towards him, his brute strength accidentally knocking Yeosang off of his feet and into the group of teenagers behind him, Yunho catching his stumbling friend before he had the chance to make contact with the ground.

Jongho’s face had soon picked up, though his intense frown had persisted as he followed after his best friend who was most likely having the worst day of his life. He got in a fight that he won but he couldn’t revel in his victory, he threw up on the floor because his crush had just seen a side to him he thought he would be able to keep hidden forever and now Mingi had detention. The boy had never gotten detention in his life. He was as much of a model student as he could be but that was over now. Besides, he would’ve gotten detention anyway since he had bounded up to the school seven minutes late, Jongho only picking up trouble with him. Jongho knew that he could take care of them by himself, he was the grandson of a powerful Earth Priestess for Christ’s sake but Mingi just _had_ to get involved. Now, they were stuck in separated detention, meaning that they would operate the three different discipline classrooms, each positioned on the opposite sides of campus away from each other to prevent another altercation. 

Mingi kept his head down as he pushed past the students who were now forced to return to their studies, the gossip of “Mingi the dog” making the senior’s ears ring, a steady stream of tears now pouring off of his cheeks. He kicked open the bathroom door, the students who were most likely hitting their nicotine sticks filing out in a hurried fashion, a comment from one of them stinging Mingi’s chest more than it was already aching.

“Bad dog.”

He tried not to let out a whimper, not like it even mattered anyway. The entire school was now thoroughly convinced that they were dealing with some dog thing and that _thing_ was Mingi. The boy who had usually slunk under the shadows and shrouded himself with fantasy and his own cloak of elusive mystery. What was he supposed to do now? He rushed in with the rest of the potheads or whatever they were hitting had faded out from his view, locking the bathroom stall behind him and sinking down to his knees. He gives his hands a thorough examination, seeing that there were no stray tufts of fur adhered to them nor were his claws outstretched. The majority of his bruises and scrapes had healed themselves over, just not that stupid scratch mark that had stretched from the end of his jaw down under the collar of his shirt, the ragged scar only stopping at the tip of his collarbone. His mark, when he was ambushed in the back alley of his old house when he was just a middle-schooler. He was barely in his teens. Usually, his hoodie had helped to conceal the hideous scar that was etched into his jugular but Mingi was stuck in Jongho’s dress clothes, leaving his neck entirely naked and on display for anyone to see. Mingi never wanted Yeosang to see it.

“The hell is his problem?” Yunho huffs, making Yeosang’s chest feel slightly tight. He was made a laughing stock of the school, of course, he had a problem. Yeosang dumbed Yunho down to completely blind and departed his way back to the classroom. Sooner or later, Mingi emerged from the bathroom, taking his seat among the whispers of the crowd. Today felt longer than usual.

***

The bell for the last class had finally rung, every student rushing out of campus to do whatever it is that high school students would do on a Monday night, probably homework and hooking up in each other’s cars but the details aren’t important. Yeosang was about to grab his bag and walk to his car when he remembered… He had detention. His head tipped back as he let out a soft sigh, the boys YunWooSan not even muttering a simple goodbye as they leave with each other’s hands in their back pockets. Yeosang knew where the detention room is, being that he wasn’t a virgin to the classroom that smelled like mold and harbored the drug dealers in disguise and the girls who wouldn’t spit out their gum. As he gripped his backpack straps, making his way to the main detention room, he spotted him out of the doorway window.

Song Mingi.

  
Yeosang ducked from the doorway, his bag pressed against the wall as he lets out a soft sigh. He had only done a very quick scan but he noticed that Jongho wasn’t sidled up next to him nor were the usual detention criminals lurking at their “assigned” desks. He gave himself a three-count before he walked in, careful to avert from his sparkling brown eyes but had failed miserably - as expected. Mingi still looked as stunning as he did this morning when he saw him in the hall with the boys that he had supposedly beaten to a pulp. Well, sometimes the quietest are the strongest. 

Mingi couldn’t believe it. Yeosang was in the same detention as him. What did he do wrong? It’s not like he had gotten in a fight for his best friend and had unearthed his true nature as his best friend shot spells that could potentially paralyze his victim forever… Right? Hopefully, it was just some mundane things like skipping class or maybe just talking too much in one. Mingi’s heart stung a bit just thinking about Kang Yeosang in a fight. Yeosang took his seat quietly, Mingi taking this as his cue to slip his earbuds in his ear and slide into a world of pure solitude. He was silently tapping his foot to the beat before a hand came into his view. It was small, decorated with a few small beauty marks. Mingi wanted to hold it.

Mingi pulled out one earbud that was rooted in his right ear, turning to face the body that the hand was connected to. It was Yeosang. _Heart, please shut up, I’ve already had a long day,_ Mingi seethed to himself, swallowing hard on the lump in his throat, his Adam’s apple slightly twitching and making Yeosang’s head feel fuzzy. Yeosang now had a front seat to the show that was Mingi’s galaxy-like eyes. They were a deep brown, reminiscent of dark roast coffee that Yeosang would drink in the wintertime, but there were gentle flakes of amber scattered throughout his irises. It almost haunted Yeosang’s mind, being that it was as if he held a gold-star night sky in his gaze and it was remarkably addicting. “Hi, I’m Yeosang. Um, I noticed that you were signed into the Halloween Ball attendance list but when they called the nominees, you didn’t show up…” Yeosang didn’t know how to follow this up.

“Oh, um, I left early,” Mingi responded, his slightly deep voice had startled Yeosang, being that even though he was hoping for a response, he wasn’t exactly anticipating one either. He wanted to hear such a sultry voice a lot more now that he had a better taste of it. Why was Yeosang thinking like that? “I thought my friends were going to show up but… Something came up so I left.”

Oh. Well, that seemed reasonable. Besides, Yeosang had left early too, he just was sleep-deprived from standing around the gymnasium with an awkward smile to greet everyone who wished to congratulate him on his materialistic win, maybe just to say “Kang Yeosang talked to me!” and add to their social status. Why were all high schools so obsessed with the body count of how many people you can converse within the span of four hours? Yeosang nodded shortly, unsure of what his next move should have been. How do you redeem yourself? Mingi nodded back, his lips forming a straight line as his earbud begins the journey of snaking back into his ear. Yeosang’s brain seems to have shut off because his hand was now yanking on Mingi’s to get the earbud away from him, gripping a little too tightly.

Mingi’s mind was now being fried by the electricity in his nerves from the fact that his crush of almost four years was kind of holding his hand. Granted, their fingers weren’t interlaced and they weren’t dating but holy hell did Mingi feel warm inside. He noticed Yeosang’s face flush of color, his skin as white as a sheet as his lips attempt to stutter out an apology. It was strange seeing one of the most popular guys in school so tongue-tied. What was it that was making Yeosang stumble over his words like that? Oh right… Mingi and Yeosang are boys, that’s seemingly forbidden, said his uncultured mind before he realized that his friend group were literally gay and dating each other. Yeosang’s full bottom lip began to tremble slightly, Mingi now afraid that he was on the verge of tears. “A-Are you crying?”

The silence filled up a bit before Yeosang broke out a small grin across his lips, a deep chuckle following after that gently reassured Mingi that he was doing anything but. Sooner or later, Mingi had flashed a shy smile back at him, Yeosang noticing that his main smile came from his eyes, the soft crescent shapes that were curved up, it was one of the most gorgeous things that Yeosang had ever seen. “No, no, I just… Grabbing your hand like that, I just realized that’s kind of rude…”

  
  
“No, no, no, it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting it honestly.” Mingi had realized that through Yeosang’s apology that was absent of a proper “I’m sorry” that Yeosang hadn’t let go of his hand. Mingi noticed that it was baby’s-bottom soft, it was as if the younger was gripping onto his pillow, it was that smooth. Not to even mention that Mingi’s hand could engulf Yeosang’s hand if his gut had enough in him to just wrap his hand in his. Except, this was Song Mingi for God’s sake, and that, in no way, shape, or form, was he going to listen to his heart’s deepest desire and just _hold_ Yeosang’s hand. That had to be against the rules on some planet, right?

“Do you want to go out sometime?” What the actual hell, Kang Yeosang? So you just grab a guy’s hand, your crush’s hand, mind you, and just casually ask them out on a date like that? What is actually wrong with you? Yeosang noticed that Mingi was draining of any other color except a vibrant pink that was spread out in splotchy patches across his cheekbones and jaw, dropping down under the folded collar of his dress shirt. Yeosang was still holding his hand and he was hoping that he didn’t have to let go. “Or if you don’t want to, I- you don’t have to—”

“I-” Mingi accidentally yells, his desperate attempt at cutting Yeosang’s hesitant take-backsie at what sounded like a date. “I would like that… A lot actually. Like, a lot a lot… I’m rambling, aren’t I?” Mingi’s shy grin merely made Yeosang’s heart swell in his chest, almost sure that the outline of it would pronounce itself in his chest. He was praying to the above that that was not happening.

Yeosang’s ears were enjoying this answer. Yeah, Mingi was obviously running on a nervous tangent but hearing Mingi’s voice like this, when there was no one around and it was just him taking in his panicked words, he hoped Mingi would never stop running that pretty little mouth of his. His lips were slightly full but were pressed thin because of his smile and Yeosang’s mind seemed to have abandoned him and let his mouth do the talking… Terrible idea. “It’s okay, it’s cute.”

Cute? _The_ Kang Yeosang had the nerve to call him cute? Mingi was half-tempted to pinch himself to wake up from his dream but at the same time, he was hoping that he would never wake up from it. Yeosang noticed that Mingi seemed to turn an even deeper shade of red, the majority of it filling up the volume of his cheeks until they resembled orchard apples. He forgot that words could affect people for some odd reason, being that he was running on autopilot with his brain taking a rain check of helping Yeosang out. “Um… Yeah, I do that a lot.” Mingi adds a soft chuckle at the end of it, earning a wider grin from the other. “But um, are you busy tonight, maybe? We could go somewhere after detention or something?”

“Easy there, tiger,” Yeosang snickers, making the slight twitches of anxiety fill up Mingi’s bloodstream at that statement. Of course it was too good to be true, Yeosang was probably not even in trouble and his idiot friends were trying to get him to pull a prank on him, making him seem like an even more enormous idiot. And just when he thought Yeosang was different. “You may be date material right now,” Yeosang says, motioning towards Jongho’s dress clothes that he was stuck in after spending the night at Jongho’s and not being prepared for the morning after as he was found soaked in blood in the school’s forest. “But I am nothing but.”

It was true that Yeosang obviously looked practically stunning in everything he wears. Mingi remembers one time when he wore the rattiest pair of sweatpants to school because San had managed to light Yeosang’s jeans on fire at a sleepover that sounded pretty amazing to Mingi but was actually hell for Yeosang. Despite being stuck in Yunho’s baggy sweatpants that could’ve potentially ruined Yeosang’s reputation if he let him get to it that much, they still hung off of his lanky frame in a way that Mingi couldn’t describe. If Yeosang wasn’t going to pursue a career as a model when he escapes high school, then that was a beautiful face wasted. Right now, the older of the two was wearing one of his signature varsity jackets even though he doesn’t play any sports. His slightly stretched T-shirt was tucked into his dark wash jeans, a beaten-up pair of high tops covering his feet. His face was lightly decorated with thin rings of eyeliner, minute shimmers of white glazed over his eyelids with a swipe of pink-tinged lip gloss that would stick his bottom lip until small strands of the sticky stuff would form up in his sentences. Mingi would’ve been lying if he wasn’t thinking about kissing all of that lip stuff off with his own bare ones. Still, Yeosang still could’ve grazed out in public if he wanted to. “Do you know when detention gets out?” It wasn’t necessarily changing the direction of the conversation, it was just asking a genuine question.

Yeosang pulls his phone from his jacket pocket with his free hand, the one that wasn’t awkwardly holding Mingi’s hand still. He presses his thumb against the power button, reading the time with a soft smile, Mingi taking a quick glimpse of the boy’s lockscreen before he made the screen blackout again. It was a wolf pup tangled up in a flower bed of red flowers. Telling apart flowers was not Mingi’s specialty, obviously. It was really pretty though but Mingi felt like he was being mocked, even though Yeosang didn’t know he was a werewolf… Right? “We get out in about ten minutes.”

“Can I see your phone? Y-Your lockscreen, I mean.” It was so sudden and slightly rude. What business did Song Mingi have with Kang Yeosang’s lockscreen? The shape of Yeosang’s eyebrow tilts upward in a slight tinge of confusion before he flips his phone over, sliding his device in Mingi’s direction. Mingi’s eyes were correct, it was indeed a wolf in a bed of red flowers. Was this a joke or something? Was the YunWooSan gang back at it again with their stupid practical jokes? Was Wooyoung truly not done with pestering Mingi?

“I’m not really a photographer but I found him sleeping in the red dahlia patch about a mile into the school forest. The sun was coming up on him after I took the picture and I swear I thought I saw fingers instead of paws. Must have been my sleep-deprived imagination.” A soft chuckle follows suit, Mingi’s skin beginning to crawl at the whole “fingers instead of paws” spiel. Now that he thought about it, Mingi remembered the time Jongho was complaining two months ago about red petals in Mingi’s hair that would fall out and litter his bedroom floor. Did Mingi fall asleep in the dahlia patch? Mingi was Yeosang’s lockscreen… In a sense. And Yeosang was none the wiser about it.

“Hey, Yeosang, there’s something I gotta—”

The detention bell had rung out throughout campus, signaling that the school’s discipline block was over and that everyone could now run back home and relish in their freedom. Unfortunately, it had cut off Mingi’s sentence, leaving the boy with rosy cheeks and his mouth screwing back shut. Yeosang lets out a sigh of relief as he takes his phone back into his jacket pocket, soon letting go of his grip on Mingi’s hand. He felt so empty when Yeosang had just let him go so quickly because of that stupid bell. Before Yeosang had fully turned around to exit, the lightbulb went off in his head, now striding back to where Mingi was silently stuck in his state of shock of how fast Yeosang would disappear at the speed that he showed up. “Oh, you should probably get my number, huh?” Yeosang slung his bag off of his shoulder, digging around in his front pocket for a pen. When he came to no avail, he awkwardly smiled at Mingi, the red-headed younger already fetching for his perfectly organized pouch of writing utensils, surfacing a pink Sharpie from the front pocket.

“Oh, um, will this work?” Yeosang giggles at Mingi, taking the pink marker from his hand, taking the cap in between his teeth to uncap it, Mingi not really paying attention to that part being that he had a thing about germs or things in people’s mouths but this was Yeosang, why would he complain? Yeosang had taken a grip of Mingi’s hand again, the itchy felt tip of the marker scratching a phone number on the meat of his palm in a vibrant pink. Yeosang probably would’ve written in any color but pink just seemed correct in Mingi’s mind. Yeosang gave Mingi one last smile before speaking again.

“If you text me your address tonight, I’ll pick you up and we can go out to dinner after I change. Only if you want to though, I don’t want to force you into anything if you want to wait it out or something.” Yeosang’s smile soon grew timid, in case he would have to stand in the face of rejection. Mingi noticed that his scent had slightly changed, usually he smelled of berries and rain but the smell had seemed to dim because of his fear of being told no. It stabbed at Mingi’s heart slightly to see him turn so downcast like that, the younger nodding eagerly.

“I would like to go out tonight. I live with a friend of mine these days so I’ll send you his address.” As soon as Yeosang got his reaffirmations, his familiar scent had begun to bless Mingi’s nostrils once again. He often got drunk on the smell when they were in English, being that Mingi was only two seats across from him and his supernatural smelling ability was tweaked to near perfection. He’d only been a wolf for about four years but he’d picked up a few tricks here and there, such as using his extremities to intimidate the boys he had gotten in a fight with anyway. All Mingi had to do was keep his anger in check. That would be easy, of course, Yeosang had never done anything to peeve him off.

“Can I pick you up at your friend’s house at seven then?”

“It’s a date.”

  
  
They both loved the sound of that.

***

“So let me get this straight… You have a date with _the_ Kang Yeosang and you told him to pick you up at _my_ house?” Jongho was once again shirtless in his pajama pants, the gentle tone of his adolescent body seemingly more pronounced tonight than it was this morning. Whoever Jongho would decide to let in his life as his significant other, they better treat that body just as well as the junior did. Jongho was casting mild healing spells over his stomach and waist, the small purple and yellow paint of his bruises diminishing into nothing, leaving only that nasty scar of jagged lines across the left side of his stomach.

“Well, I do kind of live here now…” Mingi retorted, hastily flipping through the hangers in his wardrobe for something else in Jongho’s closet. When Mingi was kicked out of the house because his parents had found out about his new life as a supernatural, they only gave him enough time to pack more than enough hoodies to make any person jealous and three pairs of jeans. To make matters much worse, Mingi had to trudge to Jongho’s house in the pounding rain of September, his battered-up sneakers taking more of a beating until he eventually gave up on them and showed up on his best friend’s doorstep, soaking and in his socks. Jongho’s grandmother had answered, Mingi flashing a slightly pained smile as she motioned the used-to-be brunette into her house as quick as possible, already using enough magic to draw a hot bath and freshen up his clothes. It took everything in Mingi’s power to hold Jongho back when he found out he wasn’t just “sleeping over for the night” as he wanted to nail common sense into their brains that their son wasn’t going to murder them in their sleep. That was the first fight Jongho and Mingi had, Mingi losing his temper and slicing through the side of Jongho’s abdomen with his claws. The scar was still there, of course, reminiscent to the one on Mingi’s neck where it was jagged and stretched farther than you would expect. Jongho never spoke of the Song family again.

“You’re very bold today,” he grumbles, using the last spell against his hip bone, the gentle breeze from his hands blowing his pants down until they were barely holding up on the width of his hips, on their journey to slide down his upper thighs. If Mingi had any form of attraction towards Jongho, he would’ve most likely lost himself right there. How was Jongho not dating anyone, he had the body of a true god. “You get in a fight and suddenly you’re the hottest shot for Kang Yeosang.” He seemed upset, despite the teasing smile on his face.

“ _We_ got into the fight, only because they were picking on you for literally existing. Besides, Yeosang asked me, so I wasn’t going to say no.” He huffed, his eyes flickering between a dark grey button-up and a deep purple one. Jongho always looked absolutely stunning in purple which is why his grandmother would always buy him some new clothing piece in purple. His favorite sweater was a dark purple knit with black, Cheshire Cat-like patterns stretched across the back and front. Mingi decided to skip out on flaunting off a color as bold as that one, his hand reaching out for the grey button-up, closing the sliding door of Jongho’s closet with the tip of his toe.

“No. No, you could’ve said no,” Jongho sighs, hiking his pajama pants closer to his waist, tying the knot of the drawstrings with his nimble fingers.

Mingi grumbles, undoing the buttons on the burgundy shirt that Jongho had let him borrow and tossing it off of his shoulders. Maybe this werewolf thing was treating Mingi’s body extremely well. He and his best friend had the same body type; broad shoulders, heavy chests, and toned stomachs that most men could only dream of these days, and it was practically glowing in its own way. The tan on Mingi from being caught in the sun after the full moon was deep and heavenly, it just made the senior just that more appealing to boy-hungry eyes except no one ever believed that the school’s nerd could be ripped like that. “It’s not like it’s going to be a full moon or anything. I’ll be fine, Jongho-ah.” He ruffles his younger’s hair, the strands just returning to their place peacefully on his forehead.

“My concern is not with the lunar phases, hyung,” Jongho warns, his hands warming up a small, golden dust that began to form a tiny Mingi and Yeosang in his palm, bodily details merely vague except that Mingi had several centimeters on Yeosang as he did in real life. Jongho’s free hand pointed towards the yellow figures that stood on his palm, careful not to accidentally touch them. “You may think you’ll look like this throughout the night but what if…” Suddenly, the golden boys had seemed to get into a verbal altercation, the Mingi figure soon falling onto his knees and growing taller than Yeosang until he was about as long as Jongho’s entire hand, his wolf form on full display, the sight making Mingi’s throat twitch. The Yeosang figure runs away backward off of Jongho’s palm, the dust disappearing into Jongho’s bedroom carpet, Jongho closing his palm to ward off the magic dust, clapping his hands together and watching it disappear. “You get my point, correct?”

“That’s just worst-case scenario and you know that. I would never fight Yeosang.”

“You also said that you would never fight anyone at school. Things change, hyung. You can’t make promises for things you can’t control, you know that more than anyone I know. I’m not trying to discourage you from going out with him or anything but a lot of events happened today that could consequently ruin your chances with him if you let it happen. I’m just trying t—”

“I don’t need your stupid guidance,” Mingi growls, the tips of his canines slightly sharpening as his brown eyes had bled into a deep amber, almost like staring into melted gold. His temper was attempting to boil over into something that could get him hurt just as badly as the boys that he had practically snapped in half in the hallway this morning. Jongho remains frozen, knowing fully well how to handle Mingi’s emotional outbursts before they escalate into another torn stomach - see example: Choi Jongho. Mingi took a few seconds to let his blood cool down before speaking again. “I can perfectly handle myself.”

  
  
Jongho held his hands up in surrender, backing away from the other before the two break out in their own altercation and have to drag Jongho’s grandmother into the mix to fix it. “Alright, alright, it’s your life.” Jongho reaches around Mingi to the foot of his bed, where the grey button-up was still draped on its hanger, nodding his head upwards to get Mingi to raise his arms. Mingi obliges, the younger sliding his right arm through the sleeve. “Are you nervous at all?”

“Nervous? No… I’m terrified,” Mingi responds truthfully, a long and heavy sigh following soon after, his eyes now flicking back to their normal brown shade. As Jongho slips up the left sleeve past his bicep to be held up on his shoulder, Mingi pulls his bottom lip between his teeth out of nerves. “I’ve never done anything like this before. He said that he’ll pick me up and pay for everything and just make it a night I won’t forget and all of that but this is Yeosang… The Yeosang that I’ve been crushing on since freshman year.” Jongho nods, pressing his hands against Mingi’s chest to smooth out the wrinkles. It didn’t mean anything to any of the boys honestly. It really was just Jongho helping Mingi before he went on a date. “What do I do?”

“You want my advice?” Jongho asks, beginning to thread the buttons through the holes along the hem, humming a soft song as he did so before announcing his calculated thought. “I know it’s kind of overused and cliche to say ‘Just be yourself and let the tide figure it out’ or whatever stereotypical love songs tend to spew out but for once, maybe you should consider it. Not necessarily the whole lycanthrope aspect of your personality, per se, but the human side that he knows you for.” He flattens out Mingi’s collar, shaking out any microscopic specks with a few tugs. Mingi looked absolutely stunning, even Jongho, who wasn’t interested in anybody, could see that. He leans up on his tiptoes, being that Mingi somewhat towered him in height, not to mention that Jongho wasn’t wearing shoes to boost up his centimeters to even rival against Mingi’s six-foot frame, leaving a ghost-like peck against the seam between the start of Mingi’s forehead and his hairline. It meant nothing to either of them.

“You mean the Dungeons and Dragons master who buries himself in his dragon books?” Mingi snickers, leaning down to kiss the younger’s scalp in return, ruffling his hair with a massive hand, the strands already migrating back to their original place against Jongho’s forehead. Mingi originally thought it was a spell when he first found out that he was a witch but Jongho quickly explained that it’s just the burden of pin-straight hair.

Jongho smiles in return, the apples of his cheeks thinning out as his lips curl up to fit the width of his teeth. His eyes seemed to hold a genuine glitter to them and it made Mingi’s heart feel warm that he could still make his best friend grin like that. “There’s more to your personality traits than science fiction and fantasy enthusiast. For example, you’re an amazing kisser.” His smirk shifts from genuine to slightly mischievous.

Mingi can feel the already existent flare in his cheeks increase tenfold just from the younger’s teasing, bringing an abnormally-sized hand over the lower half of his face to at least attempt to conceal his slight tinge of embarrassment. The score was now 0-1, lead by Jongho. “We need to get you a boyfriend or something. Someone else that you can make romantic fun out of that is not me.”

“Consider yourself my practice dummy,” Jongho grins sheepishly, a comforting hand resting on his shoulder. “Now look at me.”

“I am looking at you. I’ve been looking at you for fifteen minutes.”

“Not what I meant,” Jongho huffs, tilting his hyung’s head downward so that they firmly locked eyes. Mingi couldn’t lie, it was a little unsettling in terms of tension. Mingi knew about this spell but he still hated this one, more than any other trance that the youngest could throw at him. White swirls had twirled around Mingi’s amber irises, the youngest establishing the bond between them once more. It would help Mingi keep track of his emotions, being that Jongho had made a small dent of control in his mind. Jongho referred to this as his “for emergencies only” spell, only because Mingi always collapsed when he escaped from it. The familiar scent of magic (brimstone and traditional incense) had slapped Mingi in the face, the boy scrunching his nose in disgust as he stood still, Jongho establishing the bond of control. “Alright, you’re good.”

“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” Mingi sighs, voice teetering across the edge of pure panic.

“Relax, hyung, breathe with me.” Jongho inhales deeply, Mingi following suit as they complete a few breathing exercises, just to get the jitters out of Mingi’s nerves. They never heard the timid knocking at their front door.

Jongho’s grandmother emerged from her room, an inconsistent mumbling flooding from her mouth as she stamps her cane against the floor. “Three hundred years of existing on this dimensional plane and grandchildren still can’t hear the door,” she hisses, hobbling over to the door with her comical black cat weaving in between her legs.

“Wait, Grandma, it’s not for you, it’s for Mi—”

The door was already being pulled open, revealing the shy smile of Kang Yeosang, bowing to the old woman. Mingi thought he was going to collapse right there, right in front of the love of his life that finally acknowledged his existence.

“Good evening, ma’am. I’m Kang Yeosang of Seoul International Academy. I’m here to pick up Mingi. He gave me this address.” Usually, Yeosang was someone who experimented with the colors of his closet but Yeosang was stretched from head to toe in _sinister_ black. The blonde waves of his head were straightened, slightly swooping to graze the arch of his eyebrow. Pure perfection. Yeosang’s button-up was short-sleeved but the way that it just melded under his slacks, leather belt cinched tightly around his waist, Mingi could feel the sweat bead at the back of his neck. All of that coupled with that shy smile that was curling his eyes upward and Jongho knew that Mingi would be rendered speechless for several hours.

Mingi felt his heart going two-hundred miles per hour and he couldn’t get it to stop. He could already feel the pressure crushing him and killing him.

He can’t do this, he can’t do this.


	2. "good dog"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahah yes as you’ve noticed i split this into THREE chapters now just to elongate my plot aka your eternal suffering because of this agonizing slow burn. you may have also noticed that the tags/rating have changed because there is a lot of violence that plays out during these last two chapters.
> 
> major warnings of violence in this chapter are mugging and a graphic description of dismemberment, as well as the description of blood in detail. if you think that i should add more warnings, please let me know by dming me at @JONGHWAISM on twt or HWASMOONKITTY on cc. thank you!!

Mingi wasn’t expecting  _ this _ . Granted, he knew that Yeosang was most likely born with money merely lining the seams of his diaper and only evolved with it but he never actually given it a single thought that Yeosang had parked on the side street in the luxury car that he drove to school every weekday. He wasn’t actually— No, there was  _ no  _ way he would be  _ going on a date _ with  _ Yeosang  _ in his goddamn  _ Jaguar sports car _ .

“Hey, Mingi-ah, are you okay?” Yeosang presses a comforting hand against the column of Mingi’s spine, rubbing his palm against his dress shirt in a soothing manner. Mingi had finally come down from the clouds in his head, Mingi snapping his jaw shut, not even realizing that he was gaping like a fish out of water. “I-It’s a bit much, huh? I’m sorry.” There it was again, the bright scent of fresh berries and summer rain that Mingi only associated with Yeosang had almost disappeared, only leaving a sour undertone to sting his nostrils. He only smelled it on Yeosang when he felt fear and it made him want to throw up and definitely  _ did not  _ want to do that in front of him… Again.

“I mean, I wasn’t expecting this, even though this is the car that you drive to school everyday and you probably have a lot of other cars because you’re really, really rich.” Mingi’s eyes widened at the statement that poured out of him, waving his hands frantically to try and retract said statement. Yeosang only let up a small smile at the other’s brainless ranting. “I-I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that your dad probably gives you a wealthy—I mean healthy allowance! You’re not like those rich snobs, I mean not that they’re all snobs, some of them do exceptional charity work—”

“Mingi-ah.”

Mingi screwed his lips shut again before he had any other chance to spew any more word vomit. He never even noticed that Yeosang’s original scent had returned, addled with a sharp slap in the face with cologne. For once in Mingi’s life, after being surrounded by seas of prepubescent teenagers during his age of having heightened senses hitting him multiple times in every direction, Mingi was despising the scent of Yeosang’s perfume. It wasn’t a terrible scent - it was actually a really expensive cologne that Jongho himself would use - but it masked Yeosang’s natural scent, slightly agitating Mingi but not to the extent to where he would unsheath claws and tear at Yeosang’s larynx. It was just a slight irritant, nothing more.

“This is your first date, isn’t it?” Yeosang asked calmly, Mingi watching his eyes sparkle with curiosity. The younger couldn’t help but swallow, nodding with tinges of hesitance. “You don’t have to be so nervous. I’m here to show you a good time since you didn’t get much of one at the dance yesterday. I mean, it’s merely an assumption, maybe you had the time of your life and just didn’t know about it.” The pungent aroma of berries molding had given Mingi the hint about Yeosang’s coming hesitations.

“Well, to be honest, I don’t really remember much,” Mingi gave a minute grin, awkwardly scratching the nape of his neck as Yeosang made the first initial strides towards the passenger door of his Jaguar, pulling up on the handle to let the other familiarize himself with the heated leather seats. “There was a guy in a vampire cape who liked my costume while I was behind the bushes—” Mingi sunk his teeth into his tongue quickly, drawing a small pinprick of blood that he swallowed down hard.

Yeosang’s head ducked under the roof of the vehicle, an accusatory finger stabbing the air surrounding Mingi’s chest. His eyes were practically bulging from his skull as if he had made a life-changing discovery. “That was you!?” Yeosang practically shrieked, the high volume making Mingi’s ultra-sensitive ears ring ferociously like church bells on a Sunday. Mingi offered Yeosang a pained smile in response. “I almost tore myself at the seams last night trying to figure it out! You really outdid yourself, it was like you were a real werewolf or something!” Yeosang’s child-like whimsy had made the small ball of guilt resting peacefully in his gut earn more until it grew two sizes larger. Mingi could’ve spilled the truth, that it wasn’t some cheap Party City trick of faux fur and plastic teeth but as soon as the courage to speak had been successfully mustered, it diminished into dust twice as fast when Yeosang closed the door on him. It wasn’t a rude gesture but Mingi felt like breaking down into tears.

Yeosang found his position in the driver’s seat, the leather seat’s comfort cradling his body like a memory foam mattress, pushing his finger into the push start ignition, Suddenly, two small dings chimed to signal the success of starting the car, the rev of the engine following after. After the words “Welcome to Jaguar, Kang Yeosang” scrolled across the touchscreen, the abrupt sound of chainsaws rips through the speakers, coupled with a heavy bassline vibrating the entire vehicle and the consistent chanting of “Psychopath, psychopath” that finally sounded familiar to Mingi. “You listen to JIN DOGG?”

“Oh no… Well, kind of. My friend San usually controls the music when my friends go out so this is his doing. But I listen to it sometimes,” Yeosang grins, sliding his phone towards Mingi on the center console before pulling the gear shift to merge onto the main street. “You can play whatever you’d like, if you want. They all have their own personal contributions in there so if you’d like to add any, I don’t mind.” Mingi saw Yeosang’s smile out of the corner of his eye, his heart slightly swelling in his chest. He scrolled through Yeosang’s song collection, the diversity definitely apparent.

“San sure listens to a lot of girl groups,” Mingi snickers, finding his finger hovering around “No More Drama” by MAMAMOO, one of his favorites but not his perfect choice.

“San’s the Japanese trap and American hip-hop. Bubblegum pop tends to be Yunho. Sexy concept boy groups and  _ any  _ girl group is Wooyoung.” Yeosang knew about Mingi and Wooyoung’s past, how Wooyoung always made Mingi feel like he was a waste of space. All of that childish taunting and teasing blinded Wooyoung with what he thought was power but was actually a distraction from his true feelings for his best friends, San and Yunho, since they were middle schoolers. Mingi didn’t know this but it was Yeosang who brutally shoved Wooyoung in the correct direction. The two pass each other in the halls, Wooyoung offering sideways glances to the slightly trembling Mingi rushing to get to his next class.

Finally, Mingi had his musical selection.

The gentle thrum of a mid-heavy bassline had cut through Yeosang’s thoughts (“How do you apologize to someone you didn’t do anything wrong to?” “Why didn’t I stop Wooyoung earlier? I had the power.” “Wooyoung, why do you make things so difficult?”). Yeosang wasn’t familiar with this tune, not even when the vocals had been added. Unfortunately, Yeosang was still waiting on Jaguar to get back to him on an estimate to recalibrate the song identification software, only some strange, top-row keyboard symbols were present. “I don’t think I’ve heard this one.”

“It’s by a group of soloists. ‘Hocus Pocus’ by PLT,” Mingi chimes, resting Yeosang’s phone face-up in his lap, lighting up a few times with notifications from a group chat labeled “Yeosang’s Favorite Lesbians”. Mingi assumed that it was the whole YunWooSan mess that he always skirted around in the hallways. His lock screen remained the same, Mingi in wolf form sleeping in the red dahlia patch. It made Mingi want to become one with the leather seat under him.

Meanwhile, Yeosang’s head had unconsciously bobbed steadily to the rhythm, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel to follow suit. “I’ll be honest, I really wasn’t expecting you to listen to this kind of stuff. Nor the Japanese trap song that was playing when we got in the car.”

Mingi raised a quizzical eyebrow, directing his attention to the side profile of a road-attentive Yeosang. Mingi had never noticed the small mark on the edge of his cheekbone, colored one and a half shades darker than his natural skin tone. It almost sent the younger into a trance and he would have swam - or drowned, depending on how you look at it - in it for days. “What did you think I listened to? The entire Star Trek soundtrack?”

Yeosang scoffs in offense. “No!” His shoulders hunch, his grip on the steering wheel suddenly growing tighter, his voice slightly over a mumble. “I thought you listened to the Star  _ Wars  _ soundtrack.” His cheeks flared to a deep red, blowing a strand of hair away from his eyes to distract him from his coming embarrassment.

The silence brewed on for a bit before Mingi snorted, breaking down in a series of hearty laughter; Yeosang, unsure how to interpret this. “Wow, you’re just precious.” Mingi’s loud laughter, something that Yeosang had never heard before and enjoyed more than he should’ve, soon decrescendoed into soft giggles, the younger finally clearing his throat. “My friend, Jongho, has a rather colorful playlist that’s rubbed off on me.”

“That was the guy that in the fight with you this morning, right?” Yeosang pondered, Mingi offering a curt nod. “You don’t have to talk about it or anything. I just wanted to make sure I had the right visual in my mind.”

“Um, I um… I don’t really want to talk about this morning. I-If you don’t mind.”

“Oh, not at all! I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“No, I mean, it’s just…” Mingi wanted to calculate his words before he spoke, much like Jongho did on a daily basis. Yeosang was silent as he waited patiently for Mingi to execute his thought. There was no interjection, no rush to make him spit it out as quick as possible. Mingi lets out a gentle sigh, finally letting his thoughts known to Yeosang. “People barely knew me at this school for anything significant other than the quiet kid with his nose in a Dungeons and Dragons rulebook or something. Now every kid on campus knows me and Jongho as the two seniors who bashed the skulls of three kids. Now my position in the shadows has been compromised and well, it’s really all I’ve ever known.” Surprisingly, Mingi didn’t break down in tears like he was expecting, softly chuckling at something. “I guess my newfound fame snagged me a date with you.”

That made Yeosang’s ears burn bright red, maybe even brighter than Mingi’s artificial hair color, the biggest grin spreading across his cherry lip-glossed lips. “I also didn’t think that you were so flirtatious.”

They talked small for the rest of the way, sometimes talking about their surroundings and sometimes conversing about their friends. Yeosang confessed that San was his favorite out of his three friends, going on about his cool sense of style and his newly-pierced lip. San was a graffiti artist at night and Yeosang usually bailed him out when he got caught, which he honestly didn’t mind much, being that San’s impeccable artistry had offered a new life to the mundane grey walls of Seoul’s dimly lit alleyways. Mingi learned that the mural on the attendance building was indeed a San original.

Mingi took the time to talk about his time at Jongho’s residence until he turned the legal age. He explained that Jongho’s grandmother was a sassy and highly independent woman for her age but still had a caring nature that also bordered with her compassion and empathy… But only sometimes. She had two sides, as most people did: her good side and her horrid side that even demons would live in fear from. Mingi sometimes straddled between the definite line in the sand but was on her good side for the majority of his life. Seonghwa, the class president, was his grandmother’s favorite out of anyone that Jongho has ever brought home (as expected). Hongjoong… Not so much. Mingi asked if he was talking too much, Yeosang thought to himself about that one.

_ I hope you never stop, Song Mingi. _

***

“I’m going to play Super Smash Bros while Mingi is out so that I can ease myself on the high score board,” Jongho states as he watches Mingi and Yeosang leave in an expensive-looking car through the wooden blinds of the living room window. He hops down from his position of squatting on the couch cushions.

“Oh, no no no, bubba. You promised to help me carry out the old cauldron in the spell room since they made those inexpensive vial mixers. Now Maximus can have more room to play with his yarn.” Jongho’s grandmother chimes, the black cat who had wrapped his tail around her cane meowed in agreement. Jongho was half-convinced that his grandmother used a human soul and implanted it in that devilish cat. Jongho groans to himself at the tedious task but voicing that publicly to his grandmother was a potential dumpster fire that he was  _ not  _ going to throw the match on.

Jongho’s grandmother was like the older, female version of Jongho. Only thing stopping her baby-faced appearance were the harsh wrinkles and lines that were only a small tell-tale of her age, which just happened to be around three-hundred as she would like to huff to her real grandson and “adopted” grandson when they would argue about their chores. She was actually a few inches taller than Jongho, almost as tall as Mingi if she wasn’t cursed with horrible posture that left her as the feminine equivalent of the hunchback of Notre Dame. She honestly wasn’t a terrible looking woman, she’s got eight ex-husbands to prove it.

Jongho stood up and walked to the kitchen where he sighed. He maneuvered around the kitchen island towards the fridge, rearranging the magnets until he reached the correct configuration, a small click signaling his success. He pulls the entire fridge, opening an entirely new doorway behind the simple kitchen appliance. The staircase leading down into pitch black was now lit with torches lining the stone walls. “Come on, Grandma. Let’s get this over with.”

“Why do you never wear a shirt?” His grandmother hisses, pointing a finger towards his chest. Soon, two strings - red and white - had begun to wrap around his upper body, weaving in and out of each other intricately until Jongho soon found himself wearing a white T-shirt - perfectly tailored to his body’s measurements - with red pinstripes running horizontally over his stomach. “I’m sorry that Seonghwa isn’t present to witness the glory of your physique, bubba.”

“Grandma!” Jongho shrieks, cheeks practically lit ablaze from the below-the-belt comment. He doesn’t wait for his grandmother anymore, taking the steps two at a time to get away from her seeing him embarrassed as quickly as possible. “I don’t even like him like that,” he grumbled under his breath, taking the view of the spell room while he waited - semi-patiently - for his grandmother to complete the descent down the cobblestone stairs.

The spell room was more equal to a basement than to some elusive and mystical palace setting. Sure there was the black cauldron that his grandmother wanted him to toss out smacked in the middle of the room, a stack of books haphazardly stacked on the table next to the potion brewer, one left opened, but Jongho always thought it looked like a middle schooler’s mess of a failed science project in a medieval dungeon than something amazing and spectacular as the media would persist. Even Mingi was confused when Jongho first brought him down here. Some of the potions lined up neatly on the shelves would pulsate light in vibrant colors, ingredients stacked on top of each other in fermentation jars. The smell of an incense burner that always made Mingi nauseous (one of the reasons why Mingi never volunteered to come down) was burning Jongho’s nostrils. His curiosity was suddenly peaking at the open book, sauntering over to the spell table and peeking into the cauldron. When he found nothing in the pot, he thumbs through the pages while reading. “Grandma… What have you been doing with vision transference spells?”

His grandmother finally made it safely down the staircase, softly smiling as she hobbled over to her grandson, picking up a vial of liquid that was positioned next to Jongho’s elbow. “Well, I had to get a guy like Mingi bubba out of the house somehow.” His grandmother unscrewed the cap of the magenta liquid, pouring a few drops in the cauldron, reciting the spell and watching the contents expand until it began to bubble. As a clear steam begins to pool over the lip of the bowl, gathering in small puddles on the floor, Jongho watches as a wolf figure emerges from the smoke. Mingi. Another person, smaller than the Mingi wolf, reached a hand out to press his palm on Mingi’s back, the metallic scent of blood blossoming in Jongho’s nose.

_ “Hi, Mingi,”  _ the figure smiles before the two disappear. Yeosang. 

“You gave Yeosang a vision?” Jongho asks, arms crossed over his chest as he turns to his grandmother. “So you’re telling me that you gave Yeosang a vision and that’s the only reason that he asked Mingi out on a date tonight?”

“No, bubba. It was only a mere motivation. He’s the one that’s following his heart. I only offered a small push in the accurate direction. The courage that Yeosang finally mustered and showcased was not my doing… It was his own.” Jongho’s grandmother spoke calmly, the soft and serene smile never faltering. “Plus, Ms. Kim cancelled bridge so I needed something to do.”

***

Mingi and Yeosang never stopped talking to each other, no matter how small the talk was. Yeosang pulled into the only parking spot that was available, even though it would charge by every half hour. Luckily, the signs reassured that parking would be validated for customers of the restaurant so that was a major plus on their side. Yeosang was always such a perfect gentlemen, coming around to take Mingi  _ by the hand _ to help him exit the car without a cinch. Yeosang asked for his phone back as well, Mingi returning it without a single thought in the except that  _ Yeosang was still holding Mingi’s hand. _

It wasn’t as awkward as Yeosang yanking on Mingi’s hand when they were in detention and it seemed to have a little more feeling. Maybe Mingi was growing drunk off of the adrenaline but he finally found the strength in his gut to press his fingers in between the gaps of Yeosang’s, their hands now intertwined with a loving embrace. Mingi gave himself a mental high-five while his heart slammed itself against his ribcage; Yeosang was just too busy keeping his mouth shut from speaking in incoherent phrases. Yeosang thought back to the time where San always said that even looking at the essence of beauty that his two boyfriends offered left him dizzy and seeing stars. That was the most accurate representation to describe Yeosang’s feelings over something as simplistic as holding hands.

“This… Is okay, right?” Mingi asked, the innocent sparkle in his constellation-infested eyes only intensifying by the second. There was a puppy dog-like aspect of his personality when he let his guard down, not having to worry about making a fool of himself. Well, technically, that possibility lingered in the back of his head but he had switched it on silent mode and had no intent to flip it off. This was Mingi’s night and  _ nothing  _ would screw it up.

“More than okay,” Yeosang gleamed as he opened the glass doors in front of him and further motioned Mingi inside. The greeting hostesses bowed respectfully while introducing their business, the two high schoolers paying it back. Yeosang had reaffirmed that there were two of them and would be keeping one check instead of two, which was policy before you were seated. Mingi’s attempts at persisting a split bill fell on Yeosang’s deaf ears as they were led by the lead hostess to their table. She asked of their drinks - two glasses of water - and gave them a chance to browse their menus. Mingi was confused by the gigantic metal plate that stood in the center of the table but didn’t further question it.

“Do you eat here often, hyung?” Mingi asks, pretending to thumb pretentiously through the menu.

Yeosang hums at his response, already setting his menu at the edge of the table for their waiter to properly take care of. “Yunho-hyung takes his boyfriends here a lot. Naturally, I usually tag along to make sure the bumbling idiot doesn’t light anything on fire.”

Mingi chuckles lowly at that, following Yeosang’s motions of closing his menu and placing it on top of Yeosang’s. “Since you’ve been here before, you don’t mind ordering for the table, do you?”

“Of course not, love. I usually order the lean beef strips so I hope you like beef.” As if on cue, their waiter approached with two glasses and a pitcher of water, introducing himself and asking for their order. Yeosang orders lean beef strips for the table while Mingi pours their glasses. As soon as he leaves, Yeosang leans over the table, almost in Mingi’s proximity which he had absolutely no problem with. Mingi takes a drink of water, definitely not expecting this next question. “Why do you live with Jongho now, if you don’t mind me asking.” His voice was barely over a whisper. Mingi comedically choked on his water.

The panic button in Mingi’s mind was broken from the amount of times his little buddy, anxiety, had pushed down on it. Jongho even  _ taught  _ him how to answer this question if someone felt the need to ask. “Well, you see, um…” Sweat was dripping from his neck down to his spine quicker than he thought. It never even dawned on him that he didn’t have to answer this question but his brain was too focused on the fact that it was getting way too hot to keep his shirt on. “I came out to them!” Mingi slapped his hands over his mouth, a few of the restaurant patrons turning to the sudden commotion before deeming it unimportant and returning to their meals. Well, it was kind of true… He came out as a werewolf, so that counts… Right?

Was someone finally paying attention to Yeosang’s secret Christmas wish list? Yeosang grins, a little too eagerly in his opinion. “I’m glad that you came to your truth, baby. I’m sorry that your parents don’t see it the same. I wish I had the guts like yours to come out to my dad. I-I came out to my mom when I gained a crush on this guy in my senior English class but I don't think he feels the same. She took it a lot better than I thought so I’ve been waiting it out when it comes to my dad, I guess.” Was this Yeosang not-so-subtly hinting at his crush on Mingi? Yes, absolutely.

Mingi’s cheeks flared up at the pet name Yeosang practically purred.  _ Baby. _ How was he supposed to come back from  _ that  _ attack on his heart? “People just might surprise you, hyung. I was kind of rushed into my process.” He offers a toothy grin while he mentally recounts the events of the first year that he had turned. His mother had found a package of fresh ribeye steaks under his bed while fetching for his laundry, animalistic bite marks riddled into it. She was half-expecting to find a dog gnawing on a bone along with it but no such thing occurred. Mingi soon re-emerged from his joint bathroom, claws and teeth outstretched, blood dripping down his chin as he sniffed out his mother in his room. The pure terror in her eyes was cemented in his mind. He tried to explain himself but her constant shrieking and sobbing earns his father’s attention. A small handgun was loaded and pointed towards Mingi’s leg. He pulled the trigger without a second thought. He thought that his son’s devilish imposter would crumple to the ground but he merely stood, tears burning in his eyes as he saw the switch flip in his parents’ minds.

Their son was now a monster, good as dead.

He fled as quickly as he could and never had it in him to turn back. Mingi sent Jongho to retrieve more of Mingi’s belongings after a few weeks but the Songs claimed that they never had a son. That’s when Jongho cast a spell, the most difficult to remove and torturous one his skills could offer. At any attempt of trying to forget who Mingi is, his parents would feel suffocation by boa constrictors. It was an illusion spell; they never actually choked out the two but Jongho wouldn’t have cared if they did. Mingi and Jongho got in a fight that night, resulting in the torn stomach and forbidding the mention of the Songs.

“Blackmail or…” Yeosang elongated the “or”, as if asking Mingi to fill in the blank.

“Th-They found… Things. I wasn’t given long to pack my stuff and move in with Jongho. I owe those two everything.” Mingi tipped his water back up to the ceiling, downing every last drop, Yeosang watching him swallow a little too obviously. As expected from a teenage boy sitting across from his little senior English crush. Mingi brought the glass down carefully, wiping up any drops he left on his lips with the back of his hand. “I heard you won Halloween Ball King last night. Sorry I couldn’t join the stage with you.”

“I don’t know. Well, I mean, I did but… It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I know that I did maintain a campaign like you and the others did but being one of Wooyoung’s groupies… It was like they handed me the crown without considering everyone else, you know? I was kind of hoping that you would win,” Yeosang says, although the tail end of his sentence came to an incoherent mumble. Mingi’s ears picked it up, the perks of ultra-sensitive hearing.

“I only campaigned as a joke. Hongjoong-hyung started betting Seonghwa-hyung that I would only earn third or fourth but Seonghwa-hyung actually had some faith in me. I saw the winner’s board this morning on the way to class and now, Seonghwa-hyung is two-hundred thousand won richer, thanks to my second place ranking,” Mingi laughs, repouring his glass of water to replenish what Seonghwa referred to as “anxiety thirst”. That boy sure drank more water than what Mingi thought was humanly possible when he was with Jongho.

Yeosang claps for Mingi, the younger bowing his head as he takes Yeosang’s enthusiastic applause. “Second place is an amazing feat, Mingi-ah! You certainly do surpass expectations.”

All of these compliments didn’t make Mingi’s ego balloon but they sure did make his head feel fuzzy. Maybe now was a good time to tell Yeosang the truth about his “costume”, now that he had Yeosang care-free and joyous in the moment. “Like my costume, huh?”

“You have got to tell me who crafted that masterpiece. I felt terrible for just buying some plastic fangs and a polyester cape while I was standing in front of you all decked out in your werewolf persona.” Yeosang was filled to the brim with fascination and curiosity. It gave Yeosang’s eyes a soft glimmer as he leaned on his hands, just staring at Mingi with all of the interest of the world. It was amazing how Mingi didn’t feel ignored or interrupted while he was spending the night of his life with Yeosang. It made Mingi feel loved and appreciated and he felt drunk on the power of having Yeosang attentive and hanging off every word and gesture that he offered.

“Well, you see, there’s something that I—”

As expected at this point, Mingi’s sentence was halted by the two plates that were placed in front of them, promptly shutting up Mingi from further confessing his truth. It’s always when Mingi gains enough courage in the conversation to tell Yeosang the most crucial aspect of his life that an outside force sends in a distraction. Why can’t Mingi just spit out the fact that he’s a werewolf? Mingi didn’t hear Yeosang thank the waiter before he retreated, nor did he notice that Yeosang was sliding the metal plate that Mingi had mental questions on into a hidden sleeve on the table, exposing a duel flat top grill and gridded grill.

Mingi looked down at the contents of his meal in front of him and almost keeled over from an elaborate mix of emotions. When Yeosang ordered beef strips, Mingi was expecting them pre-cooked but this was far from the case. Taunting his eyes was a plate of raw meat, professionally cut, and a flurry of freshly sliced vegetables on the side, such as onion and green peppers. Mingi never had the privilege of eating like this in public, he usually sufficed to Jongho’s fridge and tore through packets of ground beef. Was Song Mingi dreaming?

Mingi held no hesitation as he snatched his metal chopsticks off the table, abruptly swiping up his first strip of raw beef, teeth sinking deep in the lean cut. He could already feel his canines outstretched against his gums, attempting to poke past his bottom lip but Mingi kept his hand over his mouth as he gnawed out that piece of heaven like there was no tomorrow. Before he snatched up another, he let his teeth retract back before he started a scene that would definitely not be the prettiest.

“M-Mingi,” Yeosang cuts in through Mingi’s thoughts, the younger perking his head up and smiling with his lips, what Yeosang assumed to be the remains of his beef strip protruding from his philtrum moving along with it. “You know that you’re supposed to cook that, right?”

Mingi swallowed on his food, eyes widening from the shock. Of course it was too good to be true; what human being eats raw beef? Mingi reluctantly placed his chopsticks back, his awkward smile on full display while Yeosang turns on the gas to light the grill. Mingi could already see his future of living alone and owning three cats… And then eating them when he felt depressed. “Yeah, I knew that! It’s just been a while since I went out to eat.” Last time Mingi went out with Jongho to bring back japchae for their game of Dungeons and Dragons with their hyungs, Mingi ripped the head off of the cardboard cutout of the cow mascot with his teeth because he was starving. Jongho had to cast multiple spells to make the bystanders believe that it was part of a variety show. “I also don’t cook much so um… You wouldn’t mind if…?”

“Not at all!” Yeosang chirped, reaching over the table for Mingi’s plate and positioning it next to his. Mingi swallowed back on the saliva that was pooling in his mouth, directing his attention away from the meat that he missed and looking up at Yeosang. Oh boy. Mingi’s eyes were fixed on Yeosang’s cherry red-glossed lips and good grief could he feel shivers snake down his spine and pool in his gut. Mingi was now watching the way how every syllable had a unique way of rolling off his tongue, Yeosang sometimes pressing his lips against each other to break the sticky strands of gloss that stretched with his sentences. To Mingi, there was no other beauty like it. “Sometimes I help San-i with his family dinners when his mom isn’t home. Fourteen mouths is a lot to feed.” Yeosang dumps the two plates on the grill, the initial sizzle that comes with the first contact inducing Mingi’s stomach to growl. He hasn’t eaten properly in three days.

Mingi watches as Yeosang uses his tongs to allow space between each strip, pouring oil on the flat top section for the vegetables while tending to the grid grill for the meat. “Fourteen? How many siblings does he have?”

“Well, he lives with his mother and father, two older sisters, two younger brothers, and a baby sister. Then the rest goes to his wait staff. The Chois tend to treat their employees as part of the family,” Yeosang explains, taking a sip of his water as he watched the oil pop from under his onions.

“Well, who do you live with?”

“Me?” Yeosang points the tongs towards himself, waiting for Mingi to nod - which he did - before continuing. He turns over Mingi’s meats before his own. “I live with my mom and dad. Oh, and also my little sister! She’s seven now and she’s one of the fastest readers in her grade. Sometimes she reads her picture books out loud to make me fall asleep.” Yeosang’s smile seemed to stretch wider (was that even humanly possible?) when he talks about his younger sibling. Mingi didn’t want to be cliche and call it cute but there was no denying how endearing and adorable it was. “She’s the one who convinced me to come out to my mom.” Flipping the onions that were given a nice char on the skins. “I don’t know where I would be in this world without her. Do you want your veggies now or later? I usually eat both but it’s up to you.”

“No, I can wait a bit. It doesn’t take long, does it?”

Yeosang shakes his head, pouting his lips. “How pink do you want the inside of your beef?”

“Very pink,” Mingi responds.

“Never struck me that you’re a rare person but I’m medium rare so I have no room to judge.” Yeosang’s giggle was Mingi’s favorite song tonight. He takes one of Mingi’s strips off the grill, cutting through it to take status of its wellness. He stabs it with his fork, showing Mingi the end result. “Is this good for you?”

Mingi nods eagerly, Yeosang handing Mingi the fork with his more pink than cooked piece of meat, the younger practically shoving it in his mouth and sucking on the prongs like it was a pacifier. Then he remembered that he was practically drooling like a dog on Yeosang’s fork, taking it away from his lips and polishing it with his napkin. Yeosang’s tongs group the meat altogether until he can pick them up with one grab, dropping the beef and veggies back on Mingi’s plate, gifting it back to him over the grill. Yeosang is still attentive towards his own meat.

“I miss seeing my little sister,” Mingi sighed, slowly picking his chopsticks back up from the table to feed himself the other half of his strip and a slice of onion. He almost spat the onion back out, grinning at Yeosang with a smile hiding disgust. He swallowed on his food, placing his chopsticks adjacent to his plate. “I haven’t seen her since middle school. Seonghwa-hyung picks up his younger cousin from school and he checks in on my sister. She says she misses me a lot. They got her a Pomerian named Princess Minky.”

Yeosang laughs loudly, his head tipping back as he lets out his hearty chuckles. “Oh my gosh, is that your nickname? That’s the cutest thing in the world!” Mingi can already feel his face get as hot as the flat top grill. “I think it’s sweet that she named a dog after you despite everything. I’d like to hope that my sister would do the same thing.”

“I’m positive that she would do the same. She sounds like a sweet girl,” Mingi smiles, about to pick up his chopsticks once again for his second picking through before Yeosang grabbed his hand for the third time today, halting Mingi in his steps. “Something wrong, Yeosang-hyung?”

Yeosang nods his head, using his own chopsticks to pick up his sizzling hot meat off the grill, blowing on it for a bit before deeming it cool enough for Mingi’s enjoyment, smiling stupidly as he did so. “I want you to try one of mine, just to see if you’d like it.”

Mingi obliges, leaning into the steam pouring up from the grill to meet Yeosang’s chopsticks in the middle, opening his mouth wide to allow the thick cut all access. Luckily, the heat and steam made Yeosang think that those huge and scary pointed teeth merely came off as an illusion. Mingi noticed how easy it was to sink his teeth into the cut as soon as it reached his molar, practically chewing all of the flavor out before he swallowed, a look of surprised painting his face followed by a smile and two thumbs-up. “That’s really good.”

Yeosang giggles again, finally serving up his plate, cutting his strips into chunks and dropping them in his metal bowl of rice. Mingi takes another strip from his plate, chewing out the tendons as he looks at Yeosang picked up his chopsticks and a spoon, settling his napkin into his lap. Mingi couldn’t believe that he was saying this but Yeosang really does eat in tiny. Yeosang takes big bites of his food, filling up his cheeks like a starving chipmunk, be he swallowed in small portions.

Mingi wondered what else Yeosang could take a big bite and swallow small at. Mingi also told his hormones to shut up before he stabbed his claws through them.

Yeosang clicks off the stove, taking up a spoonful of rice and green pepper. “Take a word of advice from me,” Yeosang murmurs, leaning over the grill to whisper something to Mingi. “Their desserts are the only lacking thing here. There’s a really good pastry place down by my house. San-i absolutely loves it there, especially since it’s his sister-in-law’s family business.” Yeosang moves his spoon closer to Mingi, nonverbally asking if he wanted a bite. Mingi practically engulfs the spoon.

“Do they sell French macarons? I’d kill for one,” Mingi asks, mouth half full of rice, quickly raising his hand to shield the sight of chewed up food and his outstretched teeth. Why did Mingi never seem to have control over things that simple? Just put your damn mouth machetes away, Song Mingi!

Yeosang nods gleefully, Mingi taking his last bite of food before inching his empty plate towards the edge of the table. Well, not exactly empty… He ate half of his grilled peppers and barely touched his onions. But he scarfed down all of his protein so that should be a plus. “I order them all the time! My favorite one is—”

“Raspberry.” They reply at the same time.

_ How did I not ask you out sooner, Song Mingi _ , Yeosang thinks to himself, watching as Mingi’s face practically lifts with his signature eye smile. Wooyoung once said that he has the face of a sunfish when he smiles like that. If that’s what all sunfish looked like on a daily basis, he would be going scuba diving more often. Yeosang’s chest didn’t feel constricted like it usually did when he saw Mingi in his senior English class; he finally felt warm and comforted, like he was sitting in a plush armchair by a toasty fireplace in winter, the flames being Mingi’s practically heavenly presence. This was like something out of Yeosang’s dreams.

Yeosang’s dreams…

_ Hi, Mingi. _

Yeosang shakes the thought out of his head physically, as if he had dozed off mid-conversation and had been smacked awake. Yeosang notices that he sort of was, the waiter repeatedly trying to get him out of his head, Mingi reaching out to fidget with Yeosang’s hand, the electricity buzzing in his nerves jolting him back to reality, like waking up to a cold shower. The waiter stands there with his hand out, checkbook in his other hand. He politely asks for Yeosang’s payment, the older nodding as he digs his wallet out of his slacks, pulling out something opaque and black.

No, there’s no way that that’s real.

“Just put it on this, please. I left my debit card at home,” Yeosang replied flatly, as if he’s bored and used to the gaping mouths that came with pulling out  _ that thing _ . The waiter nods vigorously, practically tripping over air in his rush to cash out Yeosang and Mingi. “Can’t believe I forgot my own debit card,” he hisses at himself. Mingi knew that Yeosang was a rich kid and everything - he came to this restaurant in a fucking Jaguar sportscar! - but he didn’t think that it was to this extreme extent.

“Y-Yeosang…”

“Hm?”

Mingi had his mouth open like a codfish. “W-Was that a black credit card?”

“It’s my dad’s. I have to keep it on me in case of emergencies, such as my idiotic self forgetting  _ my  _ card,” Yeosang seethes through his teeth. “You know that I’m not that daddy’s bitch stereotype though. My dad would have me by the throat in a heartbeat if I spent more than necessary.” He could barely look at Mingi. It stung both of their hearts a bit.

“You know I’ve never thought of you of a daddy’s bi-bi— Listen, Jongho’s grandmother doesn’t allow cursing in her household so it’s habit. Her soap tastes like how a dead bird smells. But I honestly forget that you’re  _ the  _ Kang Yeosang and that you were probably born in a crib made of money. Good grief, I’m making this sound worse than it actually is—”

Yeosang’s nothing but soft giggles and big smiles. “No, no, keep going. It’s cute watching you try and make my ego swell.”

Mingi takes the opportunity to take both of Yeosang’s hands in his, Yeosang tilting his head up to watch the constellations of amber flecks swim in the dark brown pools of Mingi’s eyes. Yeosang was always hypnotized by the mystery behind those eyes. “Kang Yeosang-hyung, I don’t care how much money you or your dad makes. I don’t care about the materialistic things or just being your friend to gain social status like everyone else. I like to think that I’m not annoyingly shallow like that. I like you… For you.”

Yeosang knows that he’s a blushing mess. He can feel his cheeks rise in temperature with every truthful and compassionate syllable that he lays on him. He swore that if his heart had wings, it would’ve tore through his chest and flew up to the heavens. Yeosang has heard lies all throughout his life; “friends” just using him, family betrayals, the use of his name just so people could soar to new heights. It always made Yeosang’s stomach turn, as if he could  _ smell  _ the dishonesty behind words. But Song Mingi, the senior class’s little mystery, the boy who barely spoke and only kept three close friends by his side, the poster child of stellar grades and slim participation points, finally saw Yeosang for who he truly was.

Kang Yeosang is not a title of superiority.

Kang Yeosang is just a human being.

And only Mingi had the patience to figure it out.

“Mr. Kang,” the waiter returns, Mingi quickly pulling his hands back, folding them in his lap under the table. Yeosang was a little disheartened at the sudden separation but understood his cause. After all, he was the most timid kid in their grade. The waiter passes Yeosang his black card, (Mingi still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he got to see one of those things in real life) (Do werewolves even die?) (He’d ask Jongho later) the older quickly pocketing it back in his leather wallet. “We regret to inform you that we’ve unfortunately run out of validation passes for the evening but we are offering coin payments.” The waiter jingles a handful of coins in his closed fist, Yeosang holding out his own to take the collection. “We wish you and your partner a wonderful night. Please drive safely.” The waiter passes the coins to Yeosang, bows, and departs before Mingi can spit out a protest that they’re just friends.

Even though Mingi didn’t want to be just friends. But that was Mingi’s truth right now and even though the dream is always better than reality, Mingi had to wake up.

“I’m sure if we hurry, we can snag up a few raspberry macarons, sit on the curb and stare at the stars.” Yeosang steps from the table, taking Mingi’s hand without warning and practically yanking him out of his chair and out of the restaurant. The cold air from outside slaps the two in the face, Yeosang huddling closer to the looming height of Mingi to keep warm, using him like a human furnace. Damn his sister for telling him that short-sleeves would be his best option because right now, his arms were freckled with goosebumps. Unfortunately, Mingi didn’t carry a jacket either, as equally freezing was, so there was no gentleman-ly “Here, take my coat” so Yeosang frowned at that. “Let’s just get to the car and crank that heater up to one-hundred degrees,” Yeosang shivers, letting Mingi lead him back to the car. The parking lot that they were at was around the bend of the block but they found a shortcut through a dimly-lit alleyway. That should’ve been the first sign that this was a terrible idea.

Mingi noticed it first. All of the building numbers to identify where they were were all sprayed out in red spray paint, some reading ominous messages that made Yeosang shiver more. Two stray cats hissed at Mingi; all cats hate Mingi, even Maximus, must be that whole cat and dog warfare. “Watch your step,” Mingi warns, his shoes crunching on broken glass from the shattered windows of boarded up apartment buildings.

“Mingi-ah, maybe this is a bad idea,” Yeosang says, his teeth began to chatter from the biting winds blowing through. The sound of a trash can being knocked over makes Yeosang squeak, holding closer to the taller. “I’m sc-sc-scared.”

Mingi didn’t need werewolf senses to tell him that something fishy was going on, but they helped more than he thought. He could hear Yeosang’s heartbeat picking up speed as well as his own. But he also heard more, three or four at least. Mingi leans down, speaking through closed teeth. “Yeosang-hyung, run to the car as fast as you can. There’s people here.”

“N-No, I’m not l-leaving without y-you, Mingi,” Yeosang states shakily but standing his position firmly. He absolutely refuses to let go of Mingi, no matter the cost… Even if it meant his life. “W-Wait… H-How do you kn-know that there’s p-people h-here?”

“Just trust me, Kang Yeosang. You have to run now!”

“No, don’t do that. It makes our jobs a lot harder,” a voice sounds off in the shadows, the alley’s walls vibrating with the sound of maniacal laughter. Mingi sees him before Yeosang does, perched on top of a dumpster lid like a big cat sizing up two wayward gazelle at the watering hole. Little did they know of the literal wolf in sheep’s - or human’s - clothing that was hiding. “Kang Yeosang, heir of Kang Technologies. Always helping his pops line the pockets of the fortunate while manhandling the unfortunate.” He stands under a blinking street lamp, a ski mask pulled over his head to conceal his true identity. A coward, Mingi though. His friends emerged from the shadows as well, revealing the same all-black, masked attire as, who Mingi assumed was, their leader.

“Wh-What do you w-want? I-I’ve got m-money, l-lots of money! H-How much do you w-want?” Yeosang was surrendering himself to a group of muggers. Mingi could feel Yeosang’s tears against his chest, soaking into his shirt like a tissue.

“Yeosang, no. They’re not getting any of it,” Mingi responds.

“Mingi-ah, it’s easy this way—”

“I said no, Kang Yeosang!” Mingi  _ growls _ , his eyes fading from the brown that Yeosang always melted in into a predatory yellow, almost gold. Mingi had canines that were stretching past his gums, practically shining with Yeosang’s reflection. Yeosang could feel himself shrinking in Mingi’s hold, pushing himself off of Mingi. Claws replaced fingernails, fur that was ragged had grown across every expanse of skin, the muggers watching in utter fear and confusion.

“Wh-What the hell  _ are  _ you!?” one of the muggers shrieks. The leader of the bunch throws a punch, Mingi catching the fist in his palm, his claws slowly embedding into his wrist, the leader letting out a cry of pain as blood trickles down his arm to pool at his feet. Mingi began to bend his fist back with all of his strength - which he easily exerted - towards him, the loud snap echoing the walls as he continues to twist his wrist at an inhuman angle, the screeches of pain from the leader making Yeosang sick to his stomach.

Mingi wasn’t wearing a costume. It wasn’t a get-up, a cool illusion, an annual party trick that he kept tucked under his sleeve.

Song Mingi  _ is _ a werewolf.

Yeosang had finally found his trust in Mingi and now… Who the hell was he supposed to trust now? Yeosang couldn’t stop thinking about his eyes. It was like they weren’t even his, they were a predator’s eyes, definitely not Mingi’s.

“Kill the beast!” the only woman of the group commands, watching her leader fall to his knees in agony. Mingi falls down too, but not because of the pain. Yeosang can hear the sound of Mingi’s bone structure breaking and realigning in his jaw, just the sound and sight of Mingi’s spine shifting under his dress shirt made Yeosang want to throw up. Luckily he was in an alleyway full of trash cans so he opened one of the lids and lost his dinner in it. Mingi’s face elongated until his nose and mouth merged, a wicked snarl leaving his curled black lips. He stands back up, erect of his hind legs, the sight straight out of a child’s nightmares. Mingi whips his head around to see Yeosang vacant of any color in his skin, a rather sorrowful look for a werewolf was haunting his eyes.

_ I’m sorry I did this _ , he tried to say without opening his mouth.

Everything that common sense had taught Yeosang was vacant in this situation. When Mingi had ordered him to run, Yeosang stayed. There was some sick thought twisting in Yeosang’s mind to stay and watch Mingi all wolfed out and fight the felons and snap them all like toothpicks. So Yeosang slipped behind a trash can - not the one he threw up in, that would be crude - and peeked over the lid to spectate.

One of the male muggers - there were three males, including the leader that he had twisted like a pretzel, and a female - had unsheathed a knife, hopping up on the dumpster that the leader was stalking them from, Mingi too preoccupied with the female attempting to stab him in the leg with her stilettos… Yeah, like that would work. Mingi picks her up by the collar of her trench coat, the woman almost falling out of it completely, raking his claws through the side of her stomach before throwing her body against the wall. It wasn’t a deep cut like Jongho had, merely deep enough for a few minor stitches. It was his intimidation tactic. 

The man on the dumpster bent down slightly, the small glint from his knife shining directly in Yeosang’s eyes. Yeosang realizes almost immediately that he would lunge at him and slice through him. Would that even kill Mingi? Yeosang hoped that it wouldn’t. He cups his hands around his mouth, shouting, “Mingi, beside you!”

Mingi turns the wrong way, the armed mugger jumping off the dumpster and planting his knife deep into Mingi’s shoulder, all the way to the hilt, dragging it down until he stops at the curve of his back, withdrawing it and placing a strong kick against Mingi’s spine, the wolf slamming against the wall with enough force to knock all the popcorn off the wall. Mingi knew that the mugger was expecting him to die or resist fighting to make the kill easier but that was hardly the case. People always tend to forget about werewolves and their regenerative abilities. Only thing that stops them is silver.

The blood that was dripping down his back and coating his hind paws in slick vermillion soon began to clot up and stop leaking, the armed mugger dropping his blade in the absolute horror as Mingi twitches at random, the injury that would deem any human dead in an instant beginning to sew itself shut, Mingi’s head turning to the mugger who tried to cut him up like a slab of meat. Mingi pushes himself off the wall with his front paws, turning his body towards the criminal with fear glittering in his eyes. For every hulky step that Mingi took forward was a stumbling walk backwards for the mugger until he was pressed against the opposing wall, visibly shaking. Mingi brings a clawed hand up to his face, tears of terror staining the mugger’s ski mask until it was reduced to a soaking rag. Mingi swiped his paw down, a loud, guttural noise of agony exiting his lips. Yeosang threw up again on the concrete.

The mugger’s arm fell beside him, entirely lifeless. The criminal never stopped screaming, his entire world going dark as he fell to his knees and collapsed on the ground, the bloody stump of muscle and exposed bone gurgling out erratic streams of blood, forming a pool around his body. The last mugger was smarter than his fallen comrades, already booking it as far from the scene of attack as possible. Mingi can hear two of their heartbeats slowing down; the woman that he had sliced through and the man that he had just amputated unprofessionally. Mingi hears a metallic rattle of trash cans, sniffing out who else wanted to take on the ragged beast.

It was Yeosang, cowering behind a trash can, accidentally knocking over the lid positioned next to it. There was so much confusion in Yeosang’s eyes; Mingi could already smell the rotting berry scent stinging his nostrils. It wasn’t fear though, as he originally expected it to be… It was just confusion. Yeosang slowly rises from his crouching spot, slightly intimidated by how Mingi’s shadow just stretched over his entire body, like he was a dwarf. But why? Why wasn’t Yeosang scared? He outstretched his hand, pressing it against the front of Mingi’s shoulder, spreading his fingers apart to let the fur spread out between the gaps. Yeosang felt something wet coat his palm, slightly lifting his hand up to examine it but kept his fingers against Mingi’s fur, which was shrinking down to expose his skin. “H-Hi, Mingi…” Yeosang’s voice trembles. Yeosang soon begins to take steps backward, almost stumbling over thin air to get to the general direction of where his car was parked.

And then, Yeosang ran as fast as he could from Mingi. And Mingi felt his heart shatter into smithereens.


End file.
